Papyrus knows
by Grapefruit-seven
Summary: After many timejumps Sans decides to fight Chara in his brother's stead. Papyrus learns of his brother's decision and he rushes to his aid, only to find destruction and dust. While mourning for his brother's death, Papyrusu discovers Sans hidden workspace along with a journal that reveals that Sans kept more things to himself than he told Papyrus... DISCONTINUED FOR A REASON.
1. Chapter 1 - Hero

_A/N: Hello and welcome to my first Undertale fanfiction. After seeing so many good fanfictions (and Undertale is - what? - only 4 months or so released? Awesome!), I had to hop on the train and do my own one._

 _Sadly though English isn't my first language, so the most problems I have is with finding the right words. And don't knowing if they actually fit in the context, heh... sorry if there's something that sounds weird. I'm really practising to change my writing to make it more pleasant. It's hard._

 _Oh, and just some spoilers from the start:_

 _SOMEONE'S LOOKING DESPERATE! xD_

 _Bill knows it all._

 _Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. So disclaimer - I don't own Undertale.  
_

 _._

* * *

Papyrus stood straight, his face converted in an unfamiliar calm severity as he helped the hectic villagers of Snowdin transporting their frantically packed belongings out of the village to the nearby boats. Escaping with the boat to unexplored and possibly uninhabitable or dangerous areas was a huge gamble, but they had no time for choices. They already were getting desperate.

A terrible and deadly threat of unprecedented level has presented itself.

A human had arrived.

It had been noon as the first distressed monsters run into the village and screaming with heavily laced panic of the terror they've met. Immediately the sentries had taken heel in order to stop the approaching threat, but to no avail. They never came back.

Papyrus was conflicted with leaving. He absolutely wanted to hurry off towards the forest - officially for the purpose of capturing the human but also for proving that this threat-thing was just a big old misunderstanding going on between humans and monsters. _Not all_ humans could be as bad as Undyne and most monsters pictured them, it made no sense. Humans had to be friendly (he could easily prove that fact with any human history film). This human here just needed guardiance – someone telling them that unlike in old fairy tales monsters weren't evil, not at all! However… with all the enthusiasm and passion he had, Papyrus stayed at home. He had promised his sick and shivering brother not to leave and try to find the human.

But now… everything started to escalate. _Gravely_. None of the guards like Greater and Lesser Dog had returned (even though they've been unusually serious about fighting the human) and neither had Dogamy and Dogaressa. Instead a teary and panicking cow monster was the only one to arrive – and only brought bad news. Nobody could believe it first, but the smell of the dust in the wind that blew over from the forest quickly convinced them – and whatever terrifying roamed there, it was getting closer.

So the monsters did the only reasonable thing – evacuate. To somewhere the frightening human lookalike couldn't follow them.

Nobody had anticipated that… that a _single_ human being was enough to slaughter everyone.

The shouts and noises of the monster boarding the boats in a rush felt dissembled in the mist. Surreal. As if they were far in the distance instead of just some meters away from him. He trained his senses on the surroundings, searching the white mist for any misguided poor human thing to come through. He couldn't afford it to slip past his watch or else the monsters in the boat that hadn't left already would be in danger. As future Royal Guard it was his duty to protect the citizens – and if one could solve it non-violent, it was the Great Papyrus.

The sounds behind him faded more and more. Good, so they were almost ready to leave.

His gaze scurried around for any eye-catching moving form or for any sound that indicated the thing's dreaded arrival. He was so focused on his strained watch that he squealed in surprise at the sudden voice.

"…Papyrus?!"

It came from behind, from the boat dock, along with frantic sounds of feet running through snow. His little squeal quickly guided the person through the mist to where he stood on his dutiful watch. Soon enough his brother's sturdy form emerged from the fog, still loosely wrapped in the blanket Papyrus had insisted he should coat himself in due to his sudden illness earlier the day.

"SANS? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Papyrus asked warily. Ever since this early night his brother had been unusually down. Something was bothering him, but as usual Sans just deflected it.

"heh, that's the same thing i wanted to ask you…" Sans retorted with a forced and kind of sad smile. "common, we have to leave before the human gets here."

"I CAN'T LEAVE, SANS. AS MUCH AS I'D LIKE TO, I'M GOING TO STOP THE HUMAN." "what…?" "WELL… SOMEBODY HAS TO TRY AND HELP THEM! THEY'RE PROBABLY JUST SCARED BECAUSE ALL THOSE MONSTERS APPEAR AND THEY DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER…!" "…papyrus…" "THEY JUST NEED SOMEBODY TO TELL THEM WHERE THE STRAIGHT PATH IS! THEY JUST NEED A FRIEND AND A…"

He trailed off his little enthusiastic speech as he felt his brother's shaky embrace. "SANS, WHAT'S WRONG?" "nuthin', bro… nuthin'…"

Papyrus bent over to the trembling form of his brother, confusion and worry etched in his face. "CLEARLY IT'S NOT NOTHING, SANS. YOU'RE LITERALLY RATTLING MY BONES!" Sans mumbled dismissively into his jacket, his gaze fixed on the ground. Not even countering with one of his stupid bad puns. It spooked Papyrus how off this felt to see his brother all shaky and out of character. Probably because he got an illness rendering him defenseless on the worst of times. "YOU'RE DEFINITELY NOT BEING WELL, SANS. HERE…" He bundled him up tighter, brow ridge scrunched in worry. "YOU SHOULD GO WITH THE OTHERS AND GET SOME REST." "heh, same thing i wanted to tell you as well…" Again with the strained smile. So sad and melancholic. What was up with his big brother?

"I CAN'T LEAVE, SANS, YOU KNOW THAT. IT'S MY DUTY AS A ROYAL GUARD TO PROTECT THE CITIZENS. AND I WANT TO MAKE SURE THE HUMAN GETS THE CHANCE TO TRY BEING A NICE PERSON!"

"but… everyone in snowdin is already evacuated! and… we can just contact undyne and tell her to evacuate the rest of the underworld! people still need you and you won't be able to help if you… if you're…" The blankets started to shake violently again. "Sans…" Papyrus frowned, guilt hidden in his voice.

To be blunt… he hadn't thought about that. Dreaded. Slim. Chance. That the human decided to decline his great offering of trust and guardiance… and instead chose to fight him…

Normally he would have immediately dismissed the notion. Him – the **Great Papyrus** – failing? Not possible. However…

As he tried to comfort his distressed brother, his resolve crumbled. His brother was obviously not being well right now… and especially in his current state he'd be in a definite need of Papyrus 'get-better-soon' spaghetti… however Papyrus couldn't just abandon his post – even though he kind of wanted to.

"BUT… SOMEBODY HAS TO STOP THEM…" he absently began.

"no… you can't beat them, nobody can… please, papyrus, you got to believe me with this…" Papyrus bristled up at that comment. "HEY, I'M FAIRLY STRONG, YOU KNOW? AND I'M WAY STRONGER THAN YOU!"

His brother just continued to stare at him with pained eyes. "please, papyrus… i beg you…the villagers need you more than this… thing."

Papyrus felt his arguments deflating at this. Sans had a point… everyone capable of fighting in Snowdin hasn't returned until now and he had a hunch that they won't for a while… that would leave the rest of the villagers defenseless – in a possibly dangerous new surrounding none of them knew about. He couldn't leave the civilians in the lurch!

"WELL…YEAH, THEY DO… THEY NEED THE HELP OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS!" Newfound passion surged through his body. He had still a job to do!

"WELL, LET'S GET GOING, SANS! WE NEED TO PROTECT THE VILLAGERS!" With that he scooped up his surprised brother and set off towards the boats, only to shortly stop and turn back one last time. "I'M VERY SORRY, HUMAN, THAT I COULDN'T STAY TO HELP YOU. BUT I HAVE INNOCENT PEOPLE TO PROTECT!"

Though only the low whistle of wind replied and Papyrus hurried off with Sans in his arms to catch the last waiting boat on the dock.

Sans let out a relieved breath and allowed himself to relax, if only for a short while.

* * *

.

Water lazily sloshed on the riverside. The only sound swirling through the mist on the docks of Snowdin.

That was until a person materialized out of nowhere, face mixed between guilt, resignation and anxious anticipation. Quietly typing a short update on the phone, then tucking it away and waiting for the inevitable. No sound disturbed the mist.

He slowly slid a hand over his face. Gosh, he really didn't like to deceive his brother. But with Papyrus mistaking his usual nightmare distress as an unlucky strike of _illness_ this morning, he had seen the sudden opportunity he hadn't realized before. Perhaps… perhaps he could _play_ having a cold… perhaps he could somehow use it in his impossible attempt to convince his little brother to not face off with the human _(and die)_.

In secret he had desperately hoped for Papyrus to be responsive to his plea, but after many different and futile earlier attempts he didn't really have the energy anymore to hold his hopes up and gave up halfway through this time. It came as an even greater shock when his brother surprisingly _did_ give in. Finally… after so many timelines he finally answered his request to evacuate instead of confronting the human. The irony of the situation though… at the same time when he finally got his wish granted… he wouldn't be there to relish it.

Sans took a deep breath, trying to shove down his quivering guilt for lying to his dear brother. It was better that way. This time his brother would at least survive a little bit longer. Papyrus would understand, he reassured himself. Even though he knew at the same time that he was deceiving himself with it, wasn't he?

Gosh, he was so tired… so tired of this all. But if he stopped, then the brat – no, the devil – would…

He didn't even dare to think of the future to come, the one that the devil had threatened him with if he slacked off. _Heh, one way to keep a guy busy for once._

And he felt so tired to see his brother die over and over again.

Absently he let his gaze drift to the direction where the boats had set off earlier. "sorry, bro." he whispered apologizing "but you're not strong enough… … nobody is…"

.

.

He tensed up at the sound of approaching feet and prepared himself. Somebody needed to have a bad time.


	2. Chapter 2 - Refugee

_Disclaimer: Undertale belongs to Toby Fox, not me._

 _I decided to split the first introduction chapter, so Sans could end one as well. He won't be able to do it in person for some time now._

 _._

* * *

The stars on the cave glistered faintly, only flickering sometimes when light of magical flames grazed by.

Darkness was creeping up around them and the monsters did their best to huddle close to the ones that were able to share some light and warmth. The Outskirts were always dark and cold, an uncomfortable chill seeping through cloth and skin. The energy distribution network of the CORE wasn't large enough to support long distances, so people in Snowdin had been happy to even receive energy from it in their home village.

The Outskirts weren't in the supported regions. You could say they were untouched nature. _Freezing cold and dark as coal_ without the powered stars.

They had docked their boats as soon as they deemed it far enough from the village. Everybody hoped they wouldn't have to stray too far into the depth of the dark cavern parts, but they had to keep distance before they could afford to return to their village later on.

Luckily up to now they hadn't encountered any hostile recluse monsters. Especially the kids were frightened about that since their parents used to tell stories about bad kids straying too far from their homes and getting chased by such monsters.

However the freezing cold was enough already. They didn't know how much colder it was in the Outskirts than in their little cosy village. _Unlike snow_ the frost mercilessly sneaked its way through thick fur and warm clothes. Especially the kids had a hard time with it.

Papyrus threw a calculating look behind, debating whether they were far enough away from the river. He then directed the shivering monsters over to a cave wall, his loud voice easily drowning out the hushed voices and other sounds. Hopefully the wall was enough to provide a little protection against the cold wind and bounce back a bit of their lights.

Soon enough the place was filled with shuffling and monsters trying to make themselves comfortable. The cold was still there, but they built a close ring with their belongings and blankets and cuddled up around the warmest monsters.

Papyrus, one of the few that felt little to no cold, was pacing around the tired and shivering group of monsters, occasionally adjusting blankets and packages and keeping an eye out for anything weird approaching.

He was worried about the safety of everyone. Were they far enough away? Were these mean monsters of the stories hiding in the darkness, angrily watching them and slowly creeping closer? He shuddered. Did the _human_ notice them and came after them? He still couldn't fully believe what made him give up his post and instead help with the evacuations. Sure, they needed every help they could find. But still… didn't the human as well? He needed to consult Sans about that. His big brother had seemed so sure of the unchangeable _vileness_ of the human, even though neither of them had ever met any of their kind.

He surveyed the bundles of miserable monsters for his brother wrapped in the blanket he had given to him that morning. Was it really just this morning? It felt more like a week or a month ago after so much happened. Hopefully his brother's illness hadn't gotten worse. Papyrus barely had any time to look after his brother since the evacuation, but he made sure to at least occasionally overlook the crowd for the blanket his brother had wrapped himself in. Fair enough, there he was, sitting next to the Bunny Lady.

…Or was he?

Papyrus squinted his eyes as he stepped closer. From this position his brother's form looked as if it was unusually slim. Maybe just the darkness playing a trick on his eye sockets. Or his brother was just tied up really tight. Still, even through all these reassuring thoughts he felt a tingle of unease creeping around. Must be because he was constantly on edge since the evacuation. Nothing more. Nothing to worry about.

He got next to the bundled person and hesitantly tapped them on the shoulder.

The person that turned around a bit startled was definitely NOT his brother.

A fuzzy white face greeted him, a bit startled at the sudden contact. It was a Bunny Kid. Papyrus hastily withdrew his hand, shock written on his face. "Wha…" He tried to compose himself. "KID, FROM WHERE DO YOU HAVE MY BROTHER'S BLANKET?"

The kid shivered slightly. "Plese don't teke it from me…" Surprised, Papyrus couldn't help himself to lightly stroke the kid's head. "O-OF COURSE NOT. BUT I'M WONDERING FROM WHERE YOU GOT THAT BLANKET?" He liberally overlooked the wary glare the kid's mother gave him. The kid tugged on the edges of the blanket. "Sens geve it to me." He hadn't noticed that. When had this happened? He asked the kid, confusion coursing through his soul. "Uhm… Efter we left the boets?"

Then that meant he accidentally looked out for the _wrong_ monster...! But that didn't clear up the whereabouts of his big brother. Once again his gaze surveyed the group of refugees – but didn't find what he searched for this time.

"DO YOU KNOW WHERE MY BROTHER IS?" He asked the monster. Only a hesitant headshake though.

Papyrus wordlessly got up and began seeking his brother in the mass of exhausted villagers. "SANS?" He rounded the huddled big group. "SANS?" He squeezed himself in between people, asking "EXCUSE ME, HAVE YOU SEEN SANS?" and such. He was getting more worried by the second.

"SANS?! THIS IS NOT FUNNY, YOU CAN COME OUT NOW!" He was really getting a sinking feeling of fear now. Something wasn't right. Papyrus was sure his brother was with them as they got off the boat. So that meant… that Sans somehow _lost_ them on their way through the darkness!

"Heeey, keep yar *hic* horses doown, will ya? Someone's trying to sleep heeere" a voice slurred and he felt someone's slackly grip on his scarf. "AH, I'M SORRY…" he uttered surprised. The strong reek of alcohol drifted from the two persons on the ground. Papyrus recognized them as the pair from Grillby's, the ones that had spoofed him the first time he came to the bar into thinking they could translate what Grillby thought.

"Hhmmn, sleeep sure sounds goood…" answered the second one. Papyrus made a grimace at the stench they emitted. He tried to tug his scarf out of the first one's hand, wanting nothing more than keep a little more distance to them. Gosh, how Sans stood them was beyond him. "AHEM, COULD YOU PLEASE LET GO OF MY SCARF? I NEED TO FIND SANS." However the monster ignored him and even tightened his grip, laughing lightly. "Saans? No bud. Pity he's not here."

Papyrus perked up, his attempts to free his scarf forgotten for the moment. "Huuuh? Why nat?" the second answered before he could. The first one threw himself onto his backside picking his nose, scarf long freed from his grasp. However Papyrus didn't dare to move. The monster had seen his brother?

"A asked ham if he'd come along, ya know? Kept lagging behind." "Aaaaah… aand?" "Told ma had things ta do. "Aaah…" "And then ha *hic* turned around and went back to the boats." „Just like this?" „Just like this, dude! Can you believe it? Just like this."

Papyrus shot up as if he was sitting on hot coals. "WHAT?!" He didn't mind anymore that the drunks continued to ignore him. "Had things to do" the first continued, getting bored with picking his nose. "Thiiings, dude! Buzy man." "…Is?" "Buzy." "Hmmnn…" "Tellin' ya, one day these thiings will kill him if ha keeps tem up…"

He'd heard enough to worry greatly for his big brother. If these drunken monsters were correct, then Sans…

Papyrus sprinted to where the other two patrols stood. One of the two bears and Ice Wolf were currently chatting with Grillby over the heads of sleeping monsters and early noticed his hasted approach.

"SANS IS NOT HERE!" Papyrus practically whisper-yelled as soon as he came to a halt. He didn't want to wake all the monsters up, but his evident building panic got the better of him. "Calm down, dude" Ice Wolf provided, surprised. "I CAN'T! I CAN'T FIND SANS ANYWHERE!" Papyrus did his best to keep his voice as hushed as possible, wringing his hands in worry. "Have you looked everywhere?" He nodded fiercely.

"I HAVE TO GO AND FIND MY BROTHER!" He didn't leave the others any more opportunity to delay his departure and took off, leaving a "I'M SORRY!" behind. He had the sinking feeling that his brother might be in trouble. In deep trouble.

.

.

.  
Why in the whole Underground would his brother go _back_ to the village?


	3. Chapter 3 - Scorched Earth

_A/N: Disclaimer first: I don't own Undertale._

 _._

 _Well, peeps, I wonder how other people write angst and sadness.._

 _I have to constantly fight to write it instead of distracting myself with cute cuddling fluff pictures.^^ Nope, It must be done.!_

 _Have to say I'm not that satisfied with the last segment. Probably becaus it's too much FEELS for me to write._

 _So imagine the sadnessssssss..._

 _..._

 _.._

 _Darn, I'd really love to be able to write better!_

 _(Everytime I write, I imagine it as a picture - but I can't "write" a picture! Urgh! Brain! Give me useful!)_

 _._

* * *

Papyrus reached Snowdin in record time. On another time he would have rejoiced by this incredible feat, but not today.

He was already bathed in sweat and out of breath as he pulled the boat close enough, hoping that it won't be visible from the docks. On a second thought it hadn't been much of a good choice to hurry off without preparations, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to unnecessarily endanger a monster that was able to manoeuvre a boat with magic. So instead he had paddled all the way back, his thoughts circling solely around his stupid hazarding brother, not bothering when his bones screamed at him to slow down.

Now he was all wobbly on his feet. Another thing Sans would have found hilarious.

What was his brother _thinking_?

It made no sense! First convincing him to help out the villagers, only to disappear back to the danger zone – and that while being ill! With his current condition he should've been tucked into the bed instead of even having to endure stress like this!

Papyrus cautiously stepped onto the docks. So far so good, no human-thing or something else in sight. But also no foot prints of his brother, only the undisturbed freshly fallen snow.

Come to think of that – he hadn't seen Sans' boat until now. Did he accidentally pass it by in his haste? It was sure hard to make out clear shapes in this mist. But how fast could his brother even paddle in his current condition?

Was his goal even the village?

Come to think of it, it was very unlikely for his fragile brother to actively search the battlefield. The more Papyrus thought about it, the less likely it seemed. With his weak constitution Sans was often the first to decline even a easy-going practise session, more comfortable with doing absolutely nothing more than slacking off.

…On the other hand him disappearing into nowhere at a critical time like that also wasn't something he'd normally do.

Out of nowhere a foul stench slammed into his senses, abruptly snapping his focus back into the positively hostile present. He wrinkled his face.

Urgh, how the stench of crumbled dust made his soul crawl… by now the wind had carried the scattered remains of the poor monsters through the village and spread out beyond any chance of collecting the dust and giving them a proper funeral.

Despite the overall scattering and instincts screaming bad smell, it seemed to accumulate at a certain line, he noticed. A small straight trail made by small shoes, leading through the ports away towards Waterfall. The footprints were too thin to belong to his stocky brother; they looked more like they belonged to a child or a small monster. And small patches of dust were crushed underneath the prints, mashing them up with the white snow and forming uncomfortable grey irregular blotches.

The human thing must have passed through here.

Papyrus felt an involuntary shiver creep up his spine.

Keeping a constant watchful eye socket out, he slowly made his way through the mist to the direction of the village. He couldn't remember the fog drifting around him like an ominous lingering threat. The silence was deafening, every tiny little scrape sounding alarming loud. He slightly flinched with each muffled noise. Everything felt dissembled in the mist. Surreal.

It felt so wrong having to calm himself down so he wouldn't be startled by every hazy small thing that disturbed the white. Normally he was hardly fazed by normal white foggy silence unlike some of the village monsters, but this… it was neither a normal situation nor normal fog.

Or when do you have to deal with the threat that a human murderer thing could jump out from behind you unnoticed? It must've been the lingering feeling the human thing left behind for he knew that according to the dusty trail the human went off towards Waterfall. However who didn't say that… Papyrus frowned and forced himself to quit the frantic path his thoughts ran towards.

Think positive. It's just a misguided human, Papyrus… calm down, they won't be coming back to jump at your neck, that's just your overreacting imagination… you did have a hard day, so it's okay to be a little bit jumpy, but just calm down now and find your brother and take him back to the evacuation camp.

He finally noticed a disturbance in the snow.

Well, just look at that. That looks awfully a lot like your brother's footprints. So that means you're on a good right track to find him and then go to the other villagers and have some nice spaghetti. Yep, like that. No need to worry.

He forcefully calmed himself down, even allowing a small smile to slip on his face as he walked along his brother's path.

He just went back to the village to bring something heforgot. Of course he didn…

…What was that?

Something dark on the ground was emerging through the fog. Another set of footprints?  
It didn't look like that. More like some bones a skeleton would use for attacks. Why were there bone attacks lying around?

Now that he thought about that, there were more around, half buried in the ground or covered in remains of snow. A lot of the snow however was treaded down, kicked away or melted, revealing large parts of the normally full covered dark earth. Even some parts of the ground were rumpled and sported large holes. It looked like a battleground.

It _was_ a battleground.

And Papyrus could count the monsters that could fight with bone attacks on two fingers.

No.

No.

NO!

Suddenly Papyrus lost all his previous caution and calm attitude.

This can't be right! This can't be right!

He bolted from his stiff posture and ran around the battlefield, desperately trying to find the whereabouts about his lost brother. Destruction, poached snow, small red droplets of an unrecognizable substance, scorched earth, dust.

He froze.

Dust.

His entire being shook as he noticed the dust on the seemingly innocent blue jacket lying on the ground.

"…SANS…?"

* * *

.

Papyrus stared at the ceiling, shaken and trembling, vainly trying to calm down. But he had to...

If somebody would have asked him how long he had just sat there in the snow, clutching his brother's blue hoodie and crying, Papyrus would not be able to estimate the time at all.

He only hazily remembered desperately wanting to go home, to this being just a bad dream. A bad blurry dream where he had to wake up from and go to his brother's room.

Apparently that's where his feet had unconsciously carried him to. Just Sans' room...

This had to be a bad dream.

It had to be.

 _Please._

Suddenly he picked up a noise. What...?

He wasn't sure he even had heard that; if he even wanted to hear.

Nonetheless he listened carefully, not daring to move or make a sound. There it was again. A muffled whine along with a slight rattling noise.

Still tightly clutching his brother's blue jacket, Papyrus slowly sat up. From where did the sound come? It didn't sound like a threat... more like-

The old bed squeaked loudly. Papyrus involuntarily tensed up at the unintended loud sound. The whining stopped abruptly, only for the rattling noise to increase. Papyrus looked around the messy room of his brother. There was someone hiding in this room. And they sounded somewhat terrified - not that he blamed them.

There. The bed stand was rattling slightly.

Papyrus had to calm down before he cautiously reached with trembling hands towards the locker. As soon as he pried the top drawer open, something white raced out in a blur, throwing socks and clothes around and disappearing under the bed as fast as it came.

Papyrus had to calm his racing heart down before was able to even progress what the heck just had happened.


	4. Discontinue note & small unfinished part

Ah... excuse me... I got something to say. About this story.

Pains me to make an entire chapter about it, but it got too long for an edit underneath.

...

...After a long time of debating I decided to discontinue this story. I'm not not taking it down though.

I'm sorry if you got interested in the story so far and wanted to see how it continued further. I'm very honoured if you do and I really cheer on you to take that idea you had and write it down. You're free to continue the story how you like it to go - be it in your head or on paper, I'm fine with both. And I'm fine if you leave and forget about the story. It's perfectly fine for me either way.

I just wanted to say that this story did me no good. Or in a way it did.

First of all - I noticed it PAINS me to write depressing and sad and dark chapters. Having to force yourself to write so the story progresses is no good.

Second - my focus is again on drawing and not on writing. While writing helps me build up a story and its surroundings in a fairly quick time, I can never depict the characters and the expressions as clear as with pictures, as much as I'd love it. I'm no expert in writing and I'll never be. My passion lies in drawing.

And third - I don't really want to be one of the many artists that abandon stories after 5 chapters, leaving the reading hanging for eternity. I don't want to be that kind of person. So I'm going to leave this forever unfinished story as a reminder for myself here. FIRST write the whole story down, THEN upload it. Even if it takes me years to do so and everyone moved on to other things, I'll finish it when I'm ready and THEN publish it.

So... if you want, you can see here a short summary of things I intended to write in this story. If you want to continue it, feel free to do so and tell me! I'd love to see it. A

ALSO FEEL FREE TO CHANGE IT IN WHATEVER WAY YOU WANT IT!

.

- _Annoying Dog leads Papyrus to Sans' lab with a computer (its data isn't affected by resets)_

 _\- it plays an automatic video introducing timelines (Sans lets it run in case he forgets again after Gaster's disappearance & he didn't expect anyone to come down the lab)_

 _\- has many videos of different timelines (some where he tries to uncover why and how resets work (Flowey and Frisk do), some with events happening (usual canon routes, him going off routine like e.g. fighting alongside Undyne against the human, telling Asgore), some where he has to speak fast because he's dying and some older corrupted ones with Gaster in them as well)_

 _\- most recent one is Sans sending a voice mail over phone informing his future self that he's confronting the human off routine_

 _\- Sans has a folder only for happy videos & pictures about him and Papyrus to get his spirits back up_

 _\- Papyrus "unlocks" being able to remember timelines from now on (unsure how); tries to stop the human from killing everyone (scene where both Sans and Papyrus fight against the human in the Judgement hall)_

.

...I even got some small unfinished part of the next chapter I noticed!

So... a small kudo for anyone that read this far? And thank you for reading me rant a bit. I needed that. Thanks.

* * *

 _[Scene where Papyrus has discovered the computer in Sans' lab; the computer turned itself on]_

.

First the image was blurred and non-distinct black, until it lightened up and revealed to actually be a hand simply blocking the camera. "is this turned up now?" was heard through the shuffling. Then it cleared up to show the workshop Papyrus was in right now, though it appeared to be messier than currently, with sheets of paper scrawled all across the desk and drawers left open in the background.

However his gaze stuck solely on the person sitting on the desk facing the camera. Papyrus absently clenched his brother's jacket with his shaking hands. He recognized the person.

It was a recording of his big brother.

Oh, how Papyrus wanted nothing else than hug his brother, even though it was impossibe and he knew it… just was a video recorded long time ago.

"okay, well…" Sans adjusted the camera a little bit. He scratched his head and felt a bit weird for adressing the camera as if it was a responsive person. But it was necessary. Just in case.

"hello future me. considering you're watching this video, IT must have happened again, whatever caused it. i'm still in the progress of analyzing the last one. happened seventeen days ago."

He shuffled through his mess of notes and reports spreat on the desk while recollecting his thoughts.

"ah darn, where to start…?" he mumbled. "the most obvious thing is that you're in a lab right now - your lab. yes, you used to be a scientist until now, you just can't remember it at the moment, do you? No, you didn't research something ugly and shady, just accumulated magic radiancy like this guy" he pointed behind to the motionless Gasterblaster on the workbank "and space-time fluctuation." He crossed his arms and leaned closer towards the camera.

"…what i believe also caused my current issue. seventeen days ago i suddenly woke up in this lab with no memories on how i got here." Sans generously skipped the part that he had freaked out at that time in an environment he didn't recognize.

"took me some days to collect enough data to acess a rough idea on what the heck happened." He paused.

"i'm tempted to call it ERASE." A tab automatically opened on a part of the screen.

"now, as i was trying to find heads and tails on why i couldn't remember anything, i found these progress reports on this computer. it appears there was a co-worker with me in this lab. however if you watch any of them now, you'll see that every time this person is displayed on the screen, the image malfunctions. it took me some time, but i was at least able to reprogress the audio data to be able to put subtitles on them."

The person's heavy accent hadn't made it easier on Sans' task. Some tracks had to be rewinded way too often for his likes, but he couldn't afford to skip it - you don't know if some vital information was hidden in one of these reports.

"i believe this ERASE is the reason i can't remember anything about this lab. yours must be of similar reason then." Well, that was a wild guess. Sans hoped his future self will never have to watch this video for 'the first time'.

"regardless of my researches, this person's whereabouts were fruitless. it's a very likely theory that something must have somehow ERASED this person from our memories… it's a frightening thought that something is so powerful to obliterate an entire person from the time-space continuum…"

Sans sighed and heavily covered his face with the hands. "however…. throughout my research i realized that this topic has to be postponed for a much more urgent issue at hand… you see, while searching through the recorded files i came to notice a bug with the dates of the entries - some followed cronologically, while some were dated back to an earier time - although the automatic continuous pagination showed no inconsisty. i know, this could just be a program error or a manual edition, but nothing of the rest of the data seemed edited." He scratched his cheek bone lightly embarassed. "after all, i'm a lazy bum when it comes to it, like pap says."

Sans chuckled good natured, of course unaware of the wave of grief his words caused the current watcher of the video.

Papyrus pressed his face into his brother's dusty jacket. It smelled greasy. He hated the smell, but still loved it to his core. Everything in the video up to now made little sense, yet seeing his brother on the video filled him with sadness and a feeling of lost.

"anyway" he heard Sans' recorded voice muffled through the clothes "even if the videos are edited, it makes no sense since in these 'earlier' entries past-me or the other scientist refer back to events that happened in the 'future'. the only way for that to happen would be… with time travel. crazy, huh?"

Papyrus' head slowly inched up. His numb mind tried to focus back to the content of the video. Even if it was hard to understand with all the scientific stuff, he thought he got the jist of it. A memory erase and… time travel? Was this even possible? He tried to progress the thought, but it was hazy, like walking through a snowstorm. He barely missed his brother's next words.

"…or it could all be a elaborated spacy prank. who knows." Sans shrugged halfhearted and chuckled. This made Papyrus frown slightly. Take it up to his bro to lighten the mood no matter what.

"it's for you to judge. anyway, as you can see on the front page of the computer" a screenshot showed up in the video" i've sorted the reports so the most interesting ones are on the front page cathegorized in timeline rewinds, while the supplementary entries are filed in subfolders. material regarding the mysterious person" a red circle appeared around the bottom right corner "and the Blasters are there. i recommend you go take a look there as well. next time this video pops up, you can skip it by pressing any key on the keyboard." The image turned back to show Sans smiling. "on a last advice - if you ever feel down, view the folder 'Home'."

He winked at the camera. "Good luck recollecting your memories!"

And with that the video turned black.

Papyrus sat hunched in the chair, bleakly staring onto the black screen with the lonely white cursor and tried to progress the mass of information the video had thrown at him.

He couldn't comprehend.

.

 _[Papyrus has a emotional breakdown]_

 _[Papyrus clicks through the more important labelled data and gets the gist of what happens; has to postpone his research when Alpyhs calls him and tells him of Undyne's death & her request for helping the evacuation; gets him out and back into current events of the genocide run]_


End file.
